This chapter deals with the specific needs of developing countries, and how these countries could share the worldwide efforts to promote the life cycle thinking.
11.1
To promote streamlined LCA
Life cycle assessment very often involves the use of some, rather sophisticated, or so perceived methodologies that would require numerous sets of inventory data. In many of the developing countries data are not always available beside the limited experience needed to manipulate data and extract results and trends. In this respect it is rather important to promote the use of streamlined life cycle assessment methods as a reasonable compromise between the needs and capabilities of developing countries, such as in place in many through cleaner production centers.
11.2
The introduction of LCM related concepts
A variety of topics and ideas that ultimately contribute to the advancement and promotion of life cycle thinking are not quite well known in many of the developing countries.
Green Chemistry, with the diversity of topics it embraces such as atom economy, waste
minimization, alternative solvents and solvent-less reactions, is very viable tools to promote LCA. Information about Green Chemistry at the different educational level should be given special priorities in designing new courses and curricula in developing countries.
11.3
Training Needs and Target Groups
Training is an essential component for the promotion of life cycle thinking. It is paramount to design needs, where various tiers of training programs should be considered. At one level, generic thematic application of LCA should be the core issues of training. At the other tier, themes such as sustainability, solid waste, land use, and biodiversity should occupy a core site for training program. In the first hand training should be targeted to those, who would undergo future training (training of trainers), along with another group of decision makers at industry or government level, though training material for each group would differ.
For the training program the fundamentals of life cycle thinking, LCA methodologies and other components of the state of the art should be included as training materials.
For decision makers the material should contain some special emphasis on the role of life cycle thinking in tackling some of typical chronic issues of the developing countries. Issues such as increasing export opportunities under the eco label slogan could be an attractive lead to decision makers of several industrial sectors. Well-planned case studies of how to manage solid waste in larger cities based on the life cycle approach could be one of the most appealing issues to decision makers at municipality levels and in environmental departments. Equally important is to promote the life cycle thinking as a viable tool that decision makers should adopt when handling all environmental issues. Addressing decision makers is the right start to promote life cycle thinking in developing countries, as they are the potential and factual launching pad.
11.4
The role of international bodies and industries and the
establishment of national LCA societies
Both international bodies and multinational organizations should direct some more efforts to help develop and promote life cycle thinking, LCM and LCA in developing countries. Regional offices of international organizations and multinational organizations and cleaner production centers may support some regular meetings and/or training program. Further, the establishment of national societies dealing with aspects of life cycle thinking should be encouraged and given all possible logistic and otherwise support. Dissemination and knowledge transfer between such national societies could be an added value, with the possibility of forming nets of regional societies similar to that in place in the Asia Pacific region.
11.5 Gender issues
Gender equity in most of the developing countries is still lagging behind that in G8-countries. A great deal of the promotion campaign of life cycle thinking in developing countries should consider how to address the gender issue and how to empower the role of women, starting form simple housewives in rural and urban areas. Special program should be made to address women participation and how to introduce the concept of life cycle thinking to them.
Appendix: Contributors in alphabetical order
Ahmed Mohamed Tawfic, Suez Canal University, Ismailia,Egypt,[email protected]
Alan Brent, University of Pretoria, Republic of South Africa, [email protected]
Allan Astrup Jensen, Force Technology, Lyngby, Denmark, [email protected]
Andreas Ciroth, GreenDeltaTC, Berlin, Germany, [email protected]
Anne Landfield, First Environment Inc, Portland, OR, USA, [email protected]
Annik Magerholm Fet, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway, [email protected]
Arne Remmen, Aalborg University, Denmark, [email protected]
Burcu Tuncer, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany, [email protected]
Chie Nakaniwa, Japanese Environmental Management Association for Industry,Tokyo,Japan, [email protected]
Christina Rocha, INETI, Lisbon, Portugal, [email protected]
Chris Van Rossem, International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, Sweden,[email protected]
David Hunkeler, Aqua+Tech Specialties, La Plaine, Switzerland, [email protected]
Deborah Dunning, International Design Center for the Environment, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, [email protected]
Gerald Rebitzer, Alcan Technology & Management, Neuhausen, Switzerland, [email protected]
Gianluca Donato, ABB Group Function Sustainability Affairs, Milan, Italy, [email protected]
Guido Sonnemann, UNEP DTIE, Paris, France, [email protected]
Hamish Will, Unilever Home & Personal Care Europe, Bebington, UK, [email protected] Jay S. Golden, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA, [email protected]
Jeppe Frydendal, Force Technology, Lyngby, Denmark, [email protected]
Jutta Hildenbrand, Technical University Berlin, Germany, [email protected]
Karli James, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, [email protected]
Kerstin Lichtenvort, Technical University Berlin, Germany,[email protected]
Kim Christiansen, LCA2.0, Copenhagen, Denmark, [email protected]
Konrad Saur, Five Winds International, Donzdorf, Germany, [email protected]
Kun Mo Lee, Ajou University, Suwon, Korea. [email protected]
Lennart Karlson, ABB Group Function Sustainability Affairs, Vesterås, Sweden, [email protected]
Michael Kuhndt, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany, [email protected]
Paolo Frankl, Ecobilancio Italia, Rome, Italy, [email protected]
Robert Ackermann, Research Center Karlsruhe, Germany, [email protected]
Stefan Seuring, University of Oldenburg, Germany, [email protected]
Tom Swarr, United Technologies Corporation, Hartford, CT, USA, [email protected]